


i picture it soft and i ache

by stillness_of_remembering



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Minor Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, One Shot, Pining, Short, Short One Shot, Yamaguchi Tadashi-centric, Yamaguchi is trying his best, ear tubes, eustachian tube dysfunction, hearing loss, its more... Yearning, like its the main ship but its not official, literally tsukkiyama wasnt even supposed to be in this it just wrote itself ig, mild hearing loss, tsukishima is barely in this tbh, what is love?, yamaguchi Worries a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillness_of_remembering/pseuds/stillness_of_remembering
Summary: Yamaguchi doesn’t quite catch what Yachi says, so he smiles and nods along, watching the rest of the group to see how they react.The lunchroom is loud, and crowded, and Yachi speaks quietly. It’s not odd that Yamaguchi couldn’t make out Yachi’s words. Yachi is nice, too, so Yamaguchi knows she would gladly repeat herself for him. He doesn’t ask her to though, because he misses people’s words a few times too many to ask them to repeat themselves every time.It’d be awkward.
Relationships: Sugawara Koushi & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yamaguchi Tadashi & Karasuno Volleyball Club
Comments: 2
Kudos: 124





	i picture it soft and i ache

Yamaguchi doesn’t quite catch what Yachi says, so he smiles and nods along, watching the rest of the group to see how they react.

The lunchroom is loud, and crowded, and Yachi speaks quietly. It’s not odd that Yamaguchi couldn’t make out Yachi’s words. Yachi is nice, too, so Yamaguchi knows she would gladly repeat herself for him. He doesn’t ask her to though, because he misses people’s words a few times too many to ask them to repeat themselves every time.

It’d be awkward.

Yamaguchi focuses even harder on the conversation going on around him, as if concentrating more would help him hear them better.

It’s not like he can’t hear them at all. He just- can’t make out some of their words every few minutes, which makes him unable to tell the meaning of whole sentences. He’s skilled at navigating through conversations like this by now - and it’s both a blessing and a curse that he’s in a group setting. On one hand, there’s less direct pressure on him to be able to answer correctly and follow the conversation. But on the other hand, he finds himself subsiding into longer silences and fading into the background as he has to choose between responding to what he’s guessed they’ve said or staying quiet.

Usually he’s fine and it isn’t a problem. It’s just when there’s a lot of background noise like this that Yamaguchi has some issues. Or, sometimes when he’s reading or really focused and someone tries to talk to him. And even then, it’s not really that bad.

That’s why he likes to eat lunch with Tsukki in their classroom, instead of in the cafeteria. But Hinata and Yachi had wanted them all to eat in the lunchroom today, so they wouldn't have to push a bunch of desks together like they usually did, and Yamaguchi had gladly agreed, forgetting that he’d have to deal with… this.

And Yamaguchi feels so awkward talking about it. It isn’t a huge deal or anything, and he doesn’t want to make people think it is. It also isn’t something that just comes up in casual conversation. He can hear fine, or mostly fine. Things just sound a little muffled.

Honestly at this point he can't even say things sound muffled anymore because to him this is normal. “Muffled” is how he’d described it when it’d first began (again, for the third time), but he doesn’t even notice it anymore. Except for situations like right now.

\---

It starts for the first time like this: Yamaguchi is six, and he starts getting in trouble more, with his teacher and with his parents. He ignores them when they give him instructions. 

It baffles them because he’s such a sweet, well-behaved child otherwise, yet his teacher has to repeatedly tell him to put away his comics and get out his school books, or to follow along with the lesson. 

Sometimes he doesn’t turn his homework in, claiming he didn’t know it was due when the teacher knows she’d told the class the assignment multiple times the day before. Yamaguchi is punished many times by being made to stay inside during recess. 

Eventually, somebody catches on that something is wrong, and they take Yamaguchi to get his ears checked, and it turns out he has mild hearing loss from eustachian tube dysfunction. The eustachian tubes drain fluid from behind the eardrum - it’s a buildup of this fluid that’s causing issues for Yamaguchi. It’s not common, but its not very rare either for kids to have eustachian tube dysfunction, the doctor tells his parents.

He waits months and months and it doesn’t get better, and eventually he has to get ear tubes put into his ears. They’re tiny. They create a small passage through his eardrum so the fluid that’s built up behind it can drain out into his ear canal. 

Yamaguchi is put to sleep for the surgery, and it scares him a bit, but it’s not that bad. They put a mask over his nose and mouth and he has to breathe in weird tasting air, and it knocks him out in like three seconds. 

When he wakes up, they give him a blue popsicle because his stomach feels weird. His mom keeps asking him on the way home if he feels sick, and offering him a plastic bag, and Yamaguchi keeps saying _no, i’m fine, i think_ , and just as they pull into the garage he pukes all over the backseat of the car.

And within the day, after the soreness fades, Yamaguchi can already tell that everything is so much clearer. Of course, a couple days later everything has faded back to baseline. That’s the thing - when Yamaguchi has hearing loss, and when he doesn’t, everything just settles into a sort of normal to him. Of course, this new normal is much better than before.

Most kids grow out of eustachian tube dysfunction. Yamaguchi doesn’t.

When he’s seven or maybe eight, his ear tube falls out. That’s normal. What’s not normal, or rather is the both undesirable and unlikely outcome, is that a few months later (as his eardrum heals over?), things start to sound muffled again.

If it came on slowly, like the first few times, Yamaguchi never would have noticed. But this time it comes sharply, like when your ears suddenly pop on an airplane, but without the pain or the pressure. Popped ears on an airplane actually fairly accurately describes what it sounds like for Yamaguchi too. 

His ears start to “pop,” which makes things sound - and he knows this is repetitive, but he really has no other word for it - _muffled_ for short periods of time before they pop back to normal. While more often than not both ears don’t pop at the same time, they both started to do it within a few weeks of each other. These periods get longer and longer, and Yamaguchi is scheduled for an ear appointment, and one day a week and a half before the appointment, they just don't pop back. 

So Yamaguchi gets ear tubes again, and everything’s fine, and they fall out when he’s 10.

They tell him it’s unlikely he’ll need them again. 

A few months later, his right ear pops painlessly and leaves Yamaguchi feeling as if he’s half underwater in his second period math class. It goes back to normal after a minute or two, but Yamaguchi knows what’s going on.

He’s too shy to bring it up to his new friend Tsukishima for many of the same reasons he doesn’t bring it up now at fifteen. It seems kind of attention-seeking, he thinks, or like he’s trying to make himself seem special, when in reality it hasn't been a big part of his life. 

Back when he was seven or maybe eight, when his hearing had gotten worse the second time, one of his friends, the type you talk to at school but wouldn’t approach if you saw them at the store, had told him that _it’s not fun if you have to keep repeating yourself_. Yamaguchi had itched to tell them it was because he couldn’t hear as well, that it really wasn’t his fault, but he’d stayed quiet. 

What would that have changed? 

It’d still be annoying for his friends to say things over again (why had Yamaguchi never considered he might be annoying them? He was suddenly embarrassed for all the times he’s done it in the past). And he just- it’d be weird. He was already weird, he didn’t want to make it worse.

After that, Yamaguchi stopped asking his friends to repeat what they’d said if he’d missed it. He became a little quieter and felt a little bit more like an outsider. 

And then he had gotten ear tubes for the second time and everything had gotten better again. 

And now, here he is probably going to get ear tubes in a couple months for the third time. 

It’s a little easier with Tsukishima than the last time around.

Unlike his elementary school friends, who’d wandered the most crowded parts of school, Tsukishima largely likes to be in quiet spaces. It makes it easier for Yamaguchi.

Sometimes Yamaguchi wonders if Tsukki’s desire to be alone extends to him too. Yamaguchi had been the one who’d started following Tsukki around, and he’s cool and interesting and could make tons of friends if he wanted to. 

He doesn’t really need Yamaguchi in the way Yamaguchi needs him. 

But the couple times Yamaguchi’s gone to sit alone in a different corner of the classroom for lunch instead of trailing after Tsukki out to the big tree in the corner of the schoolyard, Tsukki has asked where he’s going in a way that means he wants Yamaguchi to come sit with him, and Yamaguchi has been reassured that Tsukki really does want him around.

When Tsukishima invites him to sleepover at his house, Yamaguchi knows for sure that he’s Tsukki’s friend, and he loses a good deal of insecurity. Still, even as his hearing gets worse, Yamaguchi doesn’t say anything to him.

He doesn’t lie though, when Tsukki asks where he’s going to be tomorrow after he has their teacher sign the pre-arranged absence form.

“Ah, I have to get ear tubes.”

“Ear tubes?” Tsukki’s tone is unusually curious.

“Um, they’re just little, uh, tubes put in my eardrum because the fluid behind it isn’t draining right.”

“Oh, huh.” Tsukki doesn’t sound like he entirely gets it, but he doesn’t ask any more questions.

When Yamaguchi comes back to school the day after next, Tsukki waits until lunch to continue their conversation. His question startles Yamaguchi, who’d been trying to pick the tomato out of his lunch.

“So do you get a lot of ear infections?”

“No…” Yamaguchi isn’t sure if he should continue, so he just leaves the word there alone in the air.

“Then what?”

Yamaguchi could pretend he doesn’t get what Tsukki’s asking him, but why should he? (Tsukki’d just clarify anyways.)

“Oh, I had mild hearing loss.”

“Wait, really?” Tsukishima looks slightly shocked. 

Yamaguchi gets flustered and starts waving his hands.

“It’s not a big deal, really! Things just sounded sort of muffled.”

“But they don’t anymore?”

“Nope! I’m good now.” 

And that’s the end of it, until Yamaguchi is twelve, in their first year of middle school, and his ear tubes fall out again, and his hearing gets worse again, and this time he can’t be fit in for an appointment for a while.

While he waits, he discovers that he can tell if his hearing is muffled or not by humming or talking. Oddly enough, it sounds louder and closer to him when he hums while his ears are muffled, like when you push down on the flaps that cover your ear holes and talk. It’s the easiest to tell if one side is off when the other’s hearing clearly, because then he can compare them.

As the switches between good and bad hearing get farther apart, and sometimes he wakes up with his hearing not quite right or only good in one ear, Yamaguchi becomes very scared of not being able to tell if he’s hearing things muffled or not. If he doesn’t know, then he can’t tell if he’s regulating his volume right. He’s scared of talking too loud - and when he tries to talk softer in response to this fear, he often overcorrects and people have to ask _him_ to repeat himself. Yamaguchi thinks this is ironic.

He walks through the hallways at school and hums very quietly under his breath, and hopes no one else hears him and thinks he’s weird. 

And then finally, _finally_ , he gets his appointment. The doctor tells him what he already expects - eustachian tube dysfunction, unusual that it would continue this long, etc, but then he says something Yamaguchi wasn’t prepared for:

“I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to get another set of ear tubes.”

Why not? his parents ask. 

Apparently Yamaguchi’s eardrums are “floppy.” He doesn’t really know what that means, but that's how the doctor describes it.

If he gets tubes put in, there’s a risk it will cause a permanent hole or something. Yamaguchi doesn’t know why that’s a bad thing, considering the aim of the ear tubes was to create a hole in his eardrum anyways, but apparently it is, so he can’t get ear tubes anymore.

“So, can I do anything?”

There is an experimental therapy, where thin balloons are inserted into the eustachian tubes and inflated, to try and fix them. It isn’t covered by Yamaguchi’s parents’ health insurance though, so he can’t do it.

But other than that, no, he can’t do anything. He’ll just have to live with it.

“For the rest of my life?”

Yes, presumably for the rest of his life. 

Look on the bright side - he may still grow out of it.

Two and a half years later, Yamaguchi is fifteen and sitting in the lunchroom nodding along to Hinata’s bright rambling and no, he has not grown out of it.

He really wishes Tsukki was here today - someone who knew what was going on and that Yamaguchi didn’t do well following along in loud places, who would sit next to him and talk louder and repeat himself with just a head tilt and confused look from Yamaguchi.

Sadly, Tsukki is absent today with the stomach flu, so Yamaguchi is alone.

Thankfully, lunch goes by quickly. Then Yamaguchi is in class, where the teacher talks into a silent room and is impossible to mishear. Class drags on, in the way it does, but Yamaguchi zones out a few times and finds that two and a half more hours have passed and finally it’s time for practice.

Practice is Yamaguchi’s favorite part of the day. He loves working towards a common goal and being a part of something. It’s not that Tsukki isn’t enough for him, but the sense of belonging that contrasts the dreadful loneliness he felt when he was younger is indescribably wonderful. Sometimes he gets embarrassed because he’s not as good as the other first years. When he isn’t sticking close to Tsukki, though, the three benched second years - Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita - practice with him. They understand him. Yamaguchi likes them, like he likes everyone on the team.

He arrives early today, not walking as slowly as usual since there’s no one to talk to on the way there. Kageyama and Hinata are predictably already there, as well as the third years. 

Yamaguchi stretches in a corner of the gym and joins Kageyama and Hinata for passing practice. 

“Hinata, higher please,” Yamaguchi calls out, taking a few lunging steps forward to reach Hinata’s pass in time.

“Ah,” Hinata breathes, stepping sideways with his eyes on the ball, “Okay.”

Yamaguchi watches his pass to Kageyama. This time Hinata has passed the ball too high, but it’s a step in the right direction, he supposes. When he hears Daichi’s call, he grabs the ball out of midair instead of bumping it back to one of the other two. Yamaguchi can almost swear he sees them pouting at that. 

“Come on guys,” Yamaguchi says. 

Predictably, Hinata takes his words too far and decides to run over to the group, which makes Kageyama decide to race him, and the two bowl over a scowling Ennoshita. Yamaguchi is _not_ getting involved in that. Instead, he waves hello to Yachi and goes to walk over with her.

Daichi starts them off with serving practice, which is Yamaguchi’s favorite because he isn’t a complete failure at it. Luckily? Ironically? his specialty is the one part of the game where a player doesn’t need to hear their teammates. Shimada had told him that “serving is the only time you’re alone,” and even with all the pressure and stress that comes with that, Yamaguchi felt a small relief that he doesn't have to worry about listening as well.

In every other part of the game, communication is so important (though they have hand signs so its not all auditory) and the gym isn’t quiet while they play. 

It isn’t some sports anime where the crowd quiets down to add suspense to the main charactors' dramatic moment. When people are in huge unmonitored groups, they’re loud. That’s just a fact.

Yamaguchi doesn’t even want to imagine being a regular in a game. The fast pace of it wouldn’t let him rewind his teammate’s words like in a conversation. Even if he could keep on top of it, it would be exhausting, and he knows he’d be doubting himself and his actions every second of every rally. 

Even so, every once in a while he does imagine being a starter. He imagines: what if he didn’t have to worry about this all the time? It’s hard to picture. He has trouble with it now. Yamaguchi thinks he worries a lot more than he needs to. When he doesn’t catch a few words and feels self-conscious, there’s often a creeping dread, a _what if anyone would’ve misheard that, and I’m just dramatizing it_. And still, he keeps worrying.

But back to his point. What if Yamaguchi didn’t worry anymore, about anything. What if he was good at playing and everyone liked him and he was important for the team. He knows it’s a horrible thing, to want someone or something to be utterly dependent on you, but Yamaguchi wants to be needed. 

And in this golden world, Tsukishima would be by his side forever. Not just on the court, and not just today, but all through high school and college and all the years after that. 

Yamaguchi knows Tsukki by now. He doesn’t begrudge him his seeming stoicism. He knows a lot of people would have a problem with it, with pouring their hearts into someone who would barely acknowledge their friendship out loud, but Yamaguchi understands that Tsukki shows his love in other ways (in favors never-to-be-repaid, and taking him to the astronomy exhibit at the museum, and always bringing two oreos in his lunch and then pretending to be full because he knows they’re Yamaguchi’s favorite). 

By now, he can read Tsukishima as well as he can read himself. 

But there’s always a hint of doubt that what Yamaguchi wants isn’t the same as what Tsukki wants. 

Yamaguchi is startled out of his thoughts by the thunk of his ball down by the baseline on the other side of the court. That was a good one. He’ll have to try and do it again. 

He goes through the rest of practice as usual, but after his earlier train of thought, Yamaguchi feels Tsukki’s absence much more keenly than before. He rushes through clean up and spends his whole walk home on his phone texting Tsukki, who thankfully is feeling much better and should be up to school tomorrow.   
  


The familiarity in their conversation reassures him. He knows just how Tsukki will respond to each of his texts, and Tsukki knows how he will react in turn. _And what is love_ , he wonders, _if not the intimate knowing of someone else?_

Yamaguchi stops by the coffee shop to get Tsukki the hot strawberry drink he likes to take over to his house. He doesn’t knock on the door because he has a key with him and he knows Tsukki’s mom and brother are out.

“Yamaguchi,” Tsukki croaks out upon seeing Yamaguchi, and he may be feeling better but his voice certainly doesn’t sound any better. “You didn’t have to.”

“Ah, gomen Tsukki, I was already going there and just thought of you.” Yamaguchi’s eyes crinkle as he smiles.

“We both know that’s a lie.” Tsukki flatly calls him out, but his own grin belies his tone.

“Would _I_ ever lie?” Yamaguchi widens his eyes dramatically. “ _Me?_ I’m offended you would even think that.”

Tsukki huffs out a laugh and Yamaguchi joins in after a second of holding the innocent expression.

\----------

They’re playing the match that could take them to nationals. Well - Yamaguchi says “they” - he hasn’t been put in yet.

Suga gestures for Yamaguchi to lean in closer and he does. They’re standing in the box at the side of the court, their other benched teammates by their sides. The stands all around them are packed full with students cheering and holding cones to yell through. Yamaguchi’s pretty sure the other team has a drum section. 

It’s 17-21, Karasuno is behind, and Yamaguchi will be put in soon - he can feel it. 

Apparently Suga can too, because he says softly, “If you go in-” and Yamaguchi loses the second half of the sentence, in the same way someone who’s nearsighted loses definition and detail in objects far away but can still make out vague shapes. He can hear that sound is coming out of Suga’s mouth, but he can’t tell exactly what the words are.

If this was any other conversation, he’d just nod and fake it, but this is actually important. 

Yamaguchi can feel the back of his neck burn as he asks for clarification.

“Sorry, what’d you say?”

Suga repeats it and as much as Yamaguchi strains to hear, he can’t tell what’s being said. 

“I- Can- Sorry, can you say it again?” Yamaguchi is sure his face is bright red by now. God, this is embarrassing.

Suga says it again, calmly and louder, and Yamaguchi is so grateful he doesn’t seem amused, even more than he’s grateful Suga doesn’t seem impatient. He’d had to go through this with one of his teachers last year and she’d laughed and Yamaguchi had felt so humiliated.

“If you go in, aim for their number 8. He looks a little more inexperienced with receives.”

“Okay, I will.” Yamaguchi nods and turns to watch the aforementioned player. 

He must look particularly miserable, because Suga nudges him and says, “Don’t worry about asking me - or any of us - to say things over, okay? We don’t mind it.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Yamaguchi mumbles. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. For real.” Suga smiles at him, and Yamaguchi can’t help the tiny grin that he makes in return.

A whistle is blown and Yamaguchi is subbed out for a sweaty Hinata. 

He holds the ball out in front of him and past it sees the black-haired number 8. 

He breathes in deeply, takes a running start, and throws the ball up.

Yamaguchi taps the ball. It floats through the air, wavering until-

It drops down on number 8, who fumbles a sloppy receive and the ball is out.

Their team cheers. Yamaguchi has always been in a habit of looking first at Tsukki. It’s Tsukki who got him into volleyball to start with, though Yamaguchi loves the game on his own now, and it’s Tsukki who Yamaguchi is most happy to be on the court with. This time, after he sees the barely-there quirk of Tsukki’s lips (that means more than 20 Hinata smiles combined - no offense to Hinata, but he gives them out so _freely_ ), Yamaguchi turns to Sugawara.

He’s giving Yamaguchi an enthusiastic thumbs up, and Yamaguchi nods at him, beaming in response. There’s a satisfaction in Yamaguchi - that the embarrassment of asking Suga to repeat his message several times had been worth it. It’d scored them a point. And now, rather than the curled up shame he’d expected to find in his chest when he looked at his senpai, all he feels is triumphant.

_I did it_. 

**Author's Note:**

> ok so at the end that is not plot accurate at all (w the pinch serving and the point tally etc)


End file.
